


Not Your Dream Job

by TheFandomLesbian



Series: Spencer's Raulson One-Shots [45]
Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Asylum
Genre: Abortion, Bananun, F/F, Planned Parenthood, tlag universe, to light and guard universe but can be read independently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23109070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFandomLesbian/pseuds/TheFandomLesbian
Summary: Having been fired from yet another job, Mary Eunice decides to try her hand at assisting with abortions at Planned Parenthood, praying her prior experience will float her through. She bites off a little more than she can chew, requiring Lana to help her out.
Relationships: Sister Mary Eunice/Lana Winters
Series: Spencer's Raulson One-Shots [45]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1214643
Comments: 11
Kudos: 38





	Not Your Dream Job

**Author's Note:**

> For a Bananun prompt: "You need to relax, you're working yourself too hard, you're going to pass out or make yourself sick if you're not careful -oh wait, too late, I've just found you asleep at your desk/chair."

In the years since the former nun had left Briarcliff and left her title, Lana had watched with frustration as Mary Eunice left job after job after job, never finding where she belonged, always winding up harassed or mistreated by her boss or her customers. She had lost count of the types of professions Mary Eunice had had a go at and failed miserably. 

But the year was 1973, and Planned Parenthood was offering a new service--one that, several years ago, would have greatly benefited Lana. Mary Eunice had been with her, then. And, when she got fired from her cafe for spilling hot coffee into the lap of a man who grabbed her ass, she came marching home, frazzled and frustrated. “Is Planned Parenthood hiring?” she asked desperately, lying on her back on the couch, staring morosely up at the ceiling.

Lana sat at the kitchen table, eating cold pizza. “Huh? What do you want to work at Planned Parenthood for? That place is getting dangerous with the protestors. Besides, what do you think you could do for them?”

Mary Eunice shrugged. “I was trained as a nurse… I was never very good at it, though.” 

“Try another convenience store.” 

“Lana, I’ve been robbed at  _ three _ convenience stores.”

_ She has a point.  _ Lana considered. “Well…” She licked the pizza grease from her fingers. “You could just not work for awhile. My show is doing fine. It’s not like we  _ need _ the money. You could take the time to develop a skill, or go to school.” 

“I was bad at school when I was fifteen. I doubt I’ll be any better at thirty-five,” Mary Eunice said with a desperate sigh. “I want to  _ work. _ I feel so lazy sitting around here all day. And I care a lot about Planned Parenthood! It’d be nice to have a job I care about.”

“Until the place gets bombed.”

“Anyplace can get bombed or robbed. I’m not worried about it.” Mary Eunice pushed herself up onto her elbows and glared at Lana. “You could be more helpful, you know.” 

“Father Joseph always said you could go serve soup to the poor.”

She chewed her lower lip. “You’re right.” She swung off of the couch. “I’ll swing by Planned Parenthood tomorrow, and if they don’t have anything that appeals to me, I’ll sign up as a volunteer at the soup kitchen until I find something that suits me better.” 

“Still stuck on Planned Parenthood?” 

“I’m surprised you don’t care as much as I do.”

“I do so care! I’m a monthly donor. I’m just not in favor of you dying for the cause.”

“As opposed to dying for a convenience store?” 

Lana paused.  _ Okay, she has a point with that, too.  _ She shrugged. “Okay. You got me. Here, come eat some pizza. It’s best when it’s cold.” Mary Eunice sat beside her and took a slice of pizza, and Lana pinched her butt with a wink. 

… 

So, the next day, light with courage and a little anxiety, Mary Eunice drove herself down to Planned Parenthood with her resume, which had grown from its once-sparse form to list every job she had ever had, including her time at Briarcliff. Protesters were clustered around the building. “Baby killer!” they screamed. A man hurled a water bottle at her, but it glanced off of the sidewalk. She blinked back at them.  _ Maybe Lana’s right. Maybe I don’t want to go through this every day on my way to work.  _ She shrugged it off and kept on walking into the front of the building. 

The secretary brightened and smiled up at her. “Hi! How can I help you today?”

“I was just wondering if you were hiring.” Mary Eunice pulled her resume out of her purse, passing it along to the secretary. “I’m not squeamish, I’m never late, and I have previous medical experience.” These were the lines Lana had rehearsed with her before every job interview, and most of the time, it worked out alright for her in getting the job. Keeping the job was a whole separate issue. 

She perked up. “Actually, there is a new position we need to fill…” The woman’s brow quirked as she reviewed the resume. “This says you were a nun?” she repeated, arching an incredulous eyebrow. “We’ve had some issues with insiders spying on us…” she hedged. 

Mary Eunice realized a little too late how odd this would have seemed to an outsider--a former nun, showing up to Planned Parenthood with a resume and a smile. “Oh--Oh, no, that’s not why I’m here at all. You see, I, um--”  _ How can I explain this?  _ She looked over her shoulder. The waiting room had women inside it. She couldn’t risk anyone overhearing. “I--A dear friend of mine needed services a few years ago, when they weren’t available. I went with her. She nearly died. I’m very dedicated to doing things safely now. I’d like to be a part of things.” She hated referring to Lana as her  _ dear friend _ in public, but the last thing she needed was for someone to stop screaming  _ baby killer _ and start screaming  _ lesbian _ instead. 

The secretary nodded slowly, considering. “Please come back with me, then. There’s a new position we need filled.” She knocked on the door of a woman inside a small office. “Dr. Everston? This is Mary Eunice McKee. She’s inquiring about our job positions. I thought you might be interested in speaking with her about our doula program.” 

_ Doula?  _ Mary Eunice blinked in surprise at the word, but the doctor held out her hand, gesturing for Mary Eunice to sit, and so she did, sitting across from her desk in a comfortable plush green chair. 

…

Lana looked up from her manuscript when Mary Eunice walked in. “Hey. You were gone for hours. What the hell took so long? I was starting to get worried.”  _ I would’ve been more worried if I would’ve checked the time before just now.  _ She licked her lips and swallowed. “So? Are you gainfully employed?”

Mary Eunice grinned and bounced in place. “You’re looking at the new abortion doula at Planned Parenthood!”

Lana squinted, frowning. “The new what now?” Her face twisted in disgust. “They’re not making you touch dead baby parts, are they?” Her stomach turned. She supported absolutely everything Planned Parenthood did, but the thought of Mary Eunice sticking her hands deep in barrels of bloody fetus remnants made her want to vomit. 

“Ew! No, no way--and there are no  _ parts, _ they all get sent off to the university to be used for research.” Mary Eunice scowled briefly, but then it disappeared into a grin. “ _ I  _ get to be the support system for women who come alone. I’m the doula! But for abortions, not for live babies. It’s something I’ve already done! They can’t fire me because I already know how to do it!”

Lana was not sold. “Sunshine… that sounds like the  _ most depressing _ job ever.” She tilted her head. “You’re going to be the counselor for women who are in an incredibly compromising time of their lives. That’s going to be a huge burden on you. Can’t you just be a janitor there or something?” 

“Okay, stop stealing my thunder. I think talking to a camera all day sounds boring, but I don’t tell you that.”

“I didn’t say it sounded boring, I said it sounded depressing.”

“Well, so is sitting around the house all day. At least I can be depressed and help people and make money instead of being depressed here alone.” Mary Eunice sat on Lana’s lap. “You can’t make me less happy about this. I want to celebrate.” She took Lana’s reading glasses off of her and put them down on her desk. “Let’s party!” 

Leaning her head back to gaze up at Mary Eunice, Lana grinned. “Well, hell, I’m not gonna argue with that.” She swatted Mary Eunice’s rump. “Get off me. Let’s go to the bedroom. My back hurts too much to do it here.” 

“And you think  _ I’m  _ going to hurt myself?” 

…

Unfortunately, Mary Eunice soon realized Lana was right. She had a tiny desk in the back corner of a crowded bullpen, and the amount of paperwork she had to fill out was astronomical. She wasn’t squeamish. What little blood she saw did not bother her… But the tears got to her. The glee, the despair, never knowing which to expect, that frightened her. The men were scary, too, when they followed their wives and daughters and mistresses into the building.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave if you can’t quiet down.” The man before her was drunk, slurring and red in the face, and the fifteen-year-old girl on the chair beside him sniffled audibly. “Everyone is here to help your daughter.”

“Just get it over with! I can’t afford this shit!” 

“Well, I’ve got some information about our payment plans that might interest you.”

The man picked up the vase off of the bedside table. “Stupid slut.” He held it up over his head, spilling the fake flowers all over the floor. “You’re gonna pay me back every goddamn penny, you hear? You open your legs, you’ll find out what happens!”

Mary Eunice stepped between him and the girl, holding up her hands but not touching him. “Sir, please leave.” He swung the vase and hit her across the jaw, sending her stumbling sideways. She bounced off of the wall of the tiny room, spitting blood. 

“Daddy!” the girl shrieked, and a nurse and Dr. Everston ran into the room. The girl crumbled into tears, burying her face in her hands. 

The nurse took Mary Eunice by the arm, turning her. “Oh, god, not again.” She glowered at the man. “Get out. Get out!” The doctor ushered him out of the room. “I know we have to be considerate of minors, but how many times does Mary Eunice have to get punched before we finally say no more men in the room? This is the third time since she got hired!” She probed the sensitive place on Mary Eunice’s face. Mary Eunice hissed in response. “She’s supposed to be here to help people, not to be our personal shield and the public’s punching bag.” 

“Lana is gonna have a fit,” Mary Eunice mumbled. Blood leaked out of the corner of her mouth. 

Dr. Everston massaged the bridge of her nose. “If we ban parents from the room, we won’t be able to service minors anymore.” 

“We aren’t servicing minors now! Look at her!” The patient was sobbing like a child, squeezing her blankets tightly. “All we’ve done is traumatize her worse than she already was and  _ really _ piss off her father.” She shook her head. “I’m out for the day. I can’t deal with anymore of this bullshit. C’mon, Mary Eunice, I’ll get you some ice for your face.” 

Mary Eunice had hoped the violence would lighten up. Surely after coming home with a black eye, a bruised shoulder, and a swollen jaw, there was nothing else the public could do that would faze her. Until one day, she headed up from the back into the waiting room. “Smith, Sherri?” she called. A woman hopped up from her chair. The window behind her shattered. A bottle on fire smashed onto the tile floor and ignited. The woman stumbled toward Mary Eunice; Mary Eunice caught her by the shoulders and dragged her away from the open flames. “Get back--Get back!  _ Fire! _ ” Taking the woman by the hand, Mary Eunice led her through the back of the building, out the side entrance, and around to the front, where the protesters had begun to cheer and riot with glee. 

Lana washed the soot from her hair that night. “You gave it your best shot.”

“I’m not quitting.”

“You’re quitting.”

“I’m  _ not _ quitting.”

“This is the  _ worst _ job you’ve had so far! And I’m including Briarcliff in that. The worst. You’re coming home with mysterious bruises, and somebody threw a Molotov cocktail at you? What the hell, Mary Eunice? When do you know when to quit?” 

“I never quit.” They both paused in silence, realizing that Mary Eunice had never actually  _ quit _ a job--she had always gotten fired. “When I get bad enough for them to let me go, you’ll be the first to know.”

Lana sighed. “They’re not going to find anyone else willing to fill that position. It’s dangerous. You need to just walk away. They were coping fine before you got there.” She rinsed the shampoo from her hair. “Will you please consider it? For me? I could get you an internship on set.” 

“Lana--I finally have a job I  _ like _ .”

“You cry almost every night! What is likeable about that?”

“I’m doing something that helps people. It’s something I care a lot about. How many people can say that about their work?”

“You can’t!” Lana argued. Mary Eunice rolled over and started to climb out of the bathtub. “Where are you going? We haven’t had bath sex yet. It’s tradition to have bath sex after I wash your hair.”

Mary Eunice popped her back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t have time to finish my paperwork before I left this afternoon. We were understaffed. It has to be submitted by noon tomorrow, so I have to finish it now.” She blew Lana a kiss and reached for a dry towel. 

“Sunshine, you haven’t even had supper yet.”

“There’s a frozen lasagna I was going to warm up. You can do it, I trust you with the oven.”

“You and I both know that’s a mistake!” Lana called after her, but Mary Eunice was already gone, heading up the hallway and fumbling into her clothes as she walked. Lana grumbled under her breath as she followed her, drying hastily and wrapping herself up in a bathrobe. Mary Eunice had a massive stack of papers before her, almost as thick as Lana’s first book. “You can’t possibly think you’re going to finish all of that tonight. How many days’ worth of paperwork is that?”

“I have to finish it tonight.” Mary Eunice ducked her head. “It’s from last week,” she confessed. “There’s only one of me. They have me wearing too many hats. They need to hire somebody else.” Lana sat beside her and split the deck of papers. “What are you doing? You can’t do this, it’s my job.” 

“And it’s  _ my _ job to take care of you. I’ll help. I’m good at paperwork. Let me put the lasagna in, and then I’ll work on it with you.” Mary Eunice got a headstart while Lana preheated the oven. “This is so much crap--I’m just signing your name. Does anybody read this shit?” 

Mary Eunice shrugged. “It goes into their file at their primary care provider, I think.” She yawned. “Just make sure a procedure that makes sense is the one that’s checked. I had a very irate client last week because I accidentally checked prostate exam instead of cervical swab… You can imagine how her provider found that confusing.” 

“I thought you were the abortion doula. Why are you dealing with prostate exams  _ or  _ cervical swabs?” 

“I don’t know. I guess I’m a  _ do whatever needs done  _ doula now. Paperwork doesn’t hit me in the face or throw a bomb through the window, so I’m okay with it.”

“You need another job.”

Mary Eunice fell silent, and Lana knew once she had earned the cold shoulder, she had officially pushed too hard, so she let it lay, chewing the inside of her cheek furiously as she tried to think of a way she could get Mary Eunice to quit.  _ I could write an anonymous article saying that there’s a gay employee at Planned Parenthood poisoning the clients, and Mary Eunice would feel guilty enough to quit.  _ But she almost certainly would figure out Lana had done it.  _ I could give her a bunch of Benadryl tonight and call the place tomorrow before she wakes up and tell them she quits and then face her wrath afterward.  _ Lana wouldn’t dare do such a thing to Mary Eunice, tempting as it was. So she kept signing in silence and reviewing the paperwork as it was laid out before her. 

When the oven beeped, she got up and put the lasagna in, and she worked some more in silence. When it beeped to tell her it was done, she pulled it out and cut it up. Mary Eunice didn’t take a piece. “I know you’re mad at me, but you need to eat. That’s not me being pushy, that’s just me loving you.”

“I’ll eat when I’m done.”

“Honey, you’ll be lucky if you’re done by tomorrow morning before you have to go back to that godforsaken place.” Mary Eunice set her jaw.  _ Okay, well, she’s not talking.  _ Lana ate her lasagna. She did the dishes. She did more paperwork. The sun set and the hours ticked by. She pretended not to notice. But the stack of papers seemed to grow taller and taller by the hour. 

By midnight, Lana pushed herself away from the table. It was not nearly done. Mary Eunice’s pen kept sluggishly trailing across the paper, her hands shaking. “You need to eat,” Lana said to her quietly again, but with Mary Eunice’s heavy-hanging eyes, Lana wondered if she even heard her.  _ I’ve got to brush my teeth.  _ Lana kissed the top of her head and went back to the bathroom.

When she came back out, Mary Eunice had slumped over the kitchen table, fast asleep and pen still in hand. Lana nudged her awake. “Okay, get up. Hold onto me.”

“Gotta… paperwork…”

“Nope. You’re going to sleep. Nothing in this is life or death. Come with me.” Mary Eunice was too tired to fight her. She slipped an arm around Lana’s shoulders and slid out of her chair, her weak legs barely supporting her. Lana lugged them both off to bed, dropping them under the covers and flicking off the lights with more haste than she had used in weeks. 

The next morning, Lana awoke to light streaming through the window. Mary Eunice snoozed beside her.  _ Shit. She missed work.  _ She slipped silently out of bed. The telephone was ringing. She needed to answer it. She closed the bedroom door behind her so the sound wouldn’t disturb Mary Eunice’s rest, and she answered it, “Hello?”

“Hi! Is Mary Eunice there?”

“She’s asleep. Can I take a message?” 

“Oh--well, this is Macey from Planned Parenthood. I was just calling to tell her not to come in today, actually.” The woman cleared her throat. “After the incident with the fire yesterday, the state has decided all of our staff must be licensed. So we are being forced to replace Mary Eunice with a licensed clinical social worker.” 

Lana paused. “So you’re telling me she’s fired?”

“Well… Fired may be a strong word…”

“But she’s being let go? She never has to go back there.”

The woman sounded uncomfortable. “Um, ma’am, you sound awfully excited, but yes, she won’t have to come back--but we would appreciate if those files she took home yesterday evening would find their way back to us.” 

“We’ll make it happen. Thanks.” Lana dropped the telephone into the cradle. “Thank god she’s fired!” She turned on her heel and headed back to bed with a sigh of bliss. 


End file.
